Celie, The Black Thunder: An Ecofeministic Study of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

Abstract

Ecological feminism or Ecofeminism is comparatively a novel approach towards nature, politics and spirituality. When a section of the society is disproportionately affected by certain androcentric decisions and practices, the planet as a whole is confronted with problems pertaining to environmental justice. Environmental reports state that the worst victims are women of color and therefore it is natural that women of colour are forced to become activists to safeguard the environment. Alice Walker is an extremely unique and committed writer who opts for a wider dimension in terms of environmental justice. The Color Purple, Walker‟s third novel focuses on the physical pain, mental agony, violence and death of black women narrated in a time-honoured epistolary technique. The fiction spans to around thirty years in the life cycle of Celie, a naive Southern black girl who later emancipates into a strong black woman fully realizing her potential physically, economically and spiritually. This research paper focuses on the exploitation of nature by the androcentric dominance and the course opted by the Celie, the central character towards the establishment of a holistic anthropological society where there exists an equilibrium between nature and humans as well as between both the genders of mankind. Keywords: androcentric decisions, environmental justice, emancipation, holistic anthropological society.